Every 15 minutes

For two days our staff and students participated in program called "Every 15 minutes". On the average every fifteen minutes a teenager dies in a traffic accident. I think that that is the statistic. The idea is to bring teens away from making reckless choices about drinking and driving, even deciding to ride with a drunk.

An announcement comes over the loudspeaker. It is the recreation of a 911 call. Something like, "Oh, my God, there's been an accident over on Franklin Road." "Is anybody hurt?" "I don't know." "Stay there I'm sending a police and ambulance over as quickly as possible."

That message is our cue to send the teachers down to a place below school where two cars have apparently collided. A girl, bloodied is hanging out of a broken window. As all 1300 students watch, first a police car arrives, followed by several more, a first responder rescue squad, a fire truck and an ambulance. The first responders ascertain the situation. The big equipment comes out to cut open the car and rescue the injured in the back seat. The girl who went through the window is put in a body bag and taken by the coroner. One of girls in back seat is brought to a waiting helicopter and flown to a trauma center. Another of the injured is placed in an ambulance to be taken to the local hospital. A policeman subjects the driver of one vehicle to a sobriety test. Then the cop places him in handcuffs and excourts him to the back seat of the waiting police vehicle. A dozen students and one teachers along with the grim reaper stand by. On the previous day, every 15 minutes one person was removed from the student body, symbolizing the death of a student in a traffic accident every 15 minutes in the United States.

The next day the entire school assembles in the gym. We get the back-story there. A fifteen minute film is assembled reviewing the events of the previous day, but adding the visit to the hospital, the communications with parents and the booking of the drunk driver. Many of the support staff have take the victims and their families though a simulated accident scenerio during those two days. The parents of the "deceased" have written a letter to their "dead" child. Their children have written back from the grave and both read their stories to the assembled 1200 students and support staff. Then an undertaker described in detail how he gives dead people their last bath. Sometimes he can clean them up so the family can say their last goodbyes face to face and sometimes that isn't possible. He discribed how a family had to feel a loved one through the body bad. A twenty six year old woman spoke about driving with a friend from Oakland to Sebastopol. Her friend, Alex, did sound for the band that night and stayed sober. Driving at the intersection of Stoney Point and Route 116 a car driven by a drunk Sonoma State student hit them so hard that their car with them in it ended up in a field and her friend, Alex died and cushoned the fall for her.

Then our principal, Chris Heller got up. "I would like everyone to know that I am six feet six and I am a man's man and it's OK to cry." And so as he read an emotional statement about how he cannot imagine a day without his two daughters, and choked over those words.

It is hard to know if this three day presentation will have a real impact, but it emotially touched many at the moment.

My new Mac

After six, maybe seven years with the Imac or sunflower mac as I have know it, I purchased a new computer. I could go in several directions from here. I could write about the data that I have lost in when this computer crashed. Then that memory would remind me of how "someone" dumped all of my documents in the trash, trying to get my machine to process faster...something about confusing the "documents" folder with the "mydocuments" folder. It is difficult to know how many gigs that I have lost, but equate it with the loss of possessions. Nostagicly I miss them. But my life is far better without them.

The machine crashed sevearl times while I was on the Internet Saturday. I had been thinking about not only getting a new machine but also an ipod touch (a topic for another blog). I went to Best Buy and saw the latest Mac Mini- 4 gigs ram, 320 gig hard drive and two point something gigahertz at $799. I told them that I would take it. The salesman went to get it and when he came back he said they were out.

The next day I went to the Mac store with Truckee. My purchase was easy. I knew what I wanted and except for some questions about cable I was set. Truckee thought that he still had a warranty and was replacing his cable. It turned out his warranty was finished, but the "Mac Genius" reluctantly replaced the battery nevertheless. We decided that it was Apple's way of leaving a positive impression for customers.

Truckee is a gosend for computer problem solving. We talked about the ways to transfer all of the information from my old Mac to my new one. He said we could use his hard drive to create a daisy chain. It worked like a charm, taking two and a half hours to transfer my materials over to my new machine. Last night I loaded the first 850 of my ten thousand photos from my photo card to iphoto. I long ago exceeded the capacity of my old machine for photos. For the first time I even gave Donna a musical slide show of our trip.

My only difficulty is finding enough free time to enjoy my new machine.

Drowning

Saturday night our good friend Jesse had a CD release party. He played and sang songs that he wrote during a year in the high desert in New Mexico. His performance includes a plethora of kiddy toys, instruments and sound effects. Then he was joined by some friends :Peter on piano and toy piano, Ben on guitar and bass and Max on drum and trombone. Jesse played a song where he mentioned drowning and my mind went back to a time when I was seven years old.

That day my family was to visit my wife's sister, Jane, at Immaculata Convent, a place where women become nuns. In the morning father gave me a little soldier helmet, army green and only about a half inch in diameter. I put it in my pocket. I remember the vast lawns of the Pennsylvania country setting. My cousins, Jimmy, Johnny and I enjoyed disappearing to another part of the campus. This day we found a resevoir, only about 20 yards long and maybe 15 yards wide. From the outside we could see little frogs sitting and sunning on the concrete rim of the pool. We climbed the metal fence, maybe four feel high, to catch some frogs.

The concrete rim, about 10 inches in width rimmed the rectangle and on each side a metal pipe where water entered. I slipped on this metal pipe and my foot went in, getting both my shoe and the cuff of my Sunday trousers wet. I thought, "I'm really going to get into trouble." As I scooted along the edge once again my foot slipped but this time I lost my balance and slid whole body into the pool. I remember Jimmy and Johnny quickly jumping the fence and running to get help.

I could not swim, but I floundered. My hands pushing the water, somehow bringing my head up now and then for a breath. I must have been successful for sometime in this chaotic attempt to stay afloat because my family was pretty far away as I remember. First my Uncle Matt, the my Uncle Joe arrived and they had a pole they wanted me to grab but I was too far toward the middle. The my dad jumped the fence and dived in. He pulled me to edge and the group all pulled me out. I remember little at Immaculata after that. I was wet. I was afraid they would be angry at me. Soon we headed home. I was convinced that I had ruined everyone's day.

I remember sitting on my bed after I had come home and my dad sitting next to me. I remember my dad saying that when he jumped in that were pipes, not too far below the surface and that he could have been impaled upon them. I reached into my pockets and realized that I had lost that little soldier helmet. I told my dad that I was disappointed that I had lost it. He said, "I thought I lost you."

I had no feeling of impending death, as far as I can remember. A child lives in the now, atleast a child of seven. Yet I remember a time in my childhood several years later when I thought I was going to hell. Then I feared death, for I feared that I would spend eternity suffering. Imagine that. More about that issue in some other blog.

The Five Paragraph Essay

My goal for my English classes this year is to try to help them think more deeply about literature. I am not sure but it may be an impossible task- something to do with an undeveloped frontal cortex. For my sophomores I have had them work in groups for two weeks. They are reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. They had to deal with at least one topic and get evidence from the book on that topic (Have I written about this?). They then get at least three quotes about the topic and make conclusions based on what they have found. It reverses the normal process of creating you classic high school literary essay, taking it from a deductive process to an inductive process. They look for evidence then make a conclusion based on the evidence.

Several of the English teachers here at Analy developed a clear way to write a cookie cutter essay for Freshman and Sophomores. In the first paragraph the student writes the thesis or the opinion. The next three paragraphs are evidence for proving the thesis. Each evidence paragraph has five parts. First the writer introduces the paragraph by giving the context of the quote that follows. Who said it? Where were they? What was the situation in the book? The second part the write just writes down the quote in quotation marks, of course. Then the student references the work and page. (Lynch 49) Part 4: The students puts the quote into his or her own words. Part five is the hard part. The writer must figure out how the quote helps to prove or give evidence to the thesis. We call it the ICCEE method: 1) Introduce the quote. 2) Copy down the quote. 3) Cite the quote. 4) Explain what the quote means. 5) Elaborate, explore or expand on the significance of the quote.

Beside being a good approach to deeper thinking in general, this process is perfect for high school students because they know very little anyway. Instead of forcing a topic that they know nothing about, they become educated on the topic, then make conclusion. The next step is to write the classic five paragraph essay from the evidence they have found. By this time the essay should practically write itself.

Just an aside:
In my sixth period class I saw one of my students draw a picture of penis and balls and give it to a girl. I don't know what was said, but I told him to see me after class. I said to him, "Whenever I see a high school drawing of penis and balls, I will think that you did it." "You drew that picture and gave it to a girl?", I continued. "It's not what you're thinking." He said. I am not really sure what I was thinking. I said, "Drawings of penises and balls do not belong in school. If you're going to draw it, do it away from here." He was deeply embarrassed and he apologized. I said that he could go.

A New Quarter

Last night I unloaded all my frustrations on Donna. She is a good supportive listener. I look at it this way: One quarter of the pie is finished of this crazy busy year. I had a talk with Joe Hile, one of the counselors. He had all of the Freshmen last year and knows the trouble makers. He said to me talking of sixth period, "That's an unbelievable class. I cannot imagine the greatest teacher being able to handle that class. It has all the 'bad guys' from last there except..." So we agreed to meet with the principal and see if we can make some modifications.

The quarter means time to change seating. I feel so powerful. Some complain, some like the results. Overall I feel bad putting some the good kids in the back because they may miss a little. I buffer the real problems. So Mark in Period 4 is in the front, surrounded by "good girls". My sixth period having 4 major problems and 5 minor problems is a little more difficult to rearrange. I find out today how my plan worked.

My first essays and stories of the year are starting to come. I must prepare for the major part of my weekends taken up reading and correcting papers. I am trying to forstall some of the process by having students check each others papers and I have a valuable and clear checklist they go by.

Second quarter- here I come.

Home Coming Rally

Ah high school. Well first you should know that I wasn't there. But it was the talk of the English lunch. One of the boys came out in black-face, actually it was a full black body in tights. But the hit of the show was the background song "Dick in a Box". Two girls (I think two) were dressed as men and came out and stripped down to their underwear. On top of their underwear at the crotch was a small box. And I guess that opened the box to pull out a crown. The references apparently go to a Saturday Night Live Program that most people who have a TV are familiar with. Not only the principal watched but the Superintendent and the Assistant Superintendent. Should I care about the ignorance and insensitivity of teenagers? Is this a sign of the downfall of American culture? or just bad taste? Sensitive readers, what do you think?

Bill

Donna's Dad visited this weekend. We had a long conversation about being President of our local union. His presidency was filled with conflicts with what he considered a bellicose administration. We are planning a trip together this summer, this time to Italy. Bill is 79. Up until a couple of years ago he could keep up with my fast pace and still he is a good walker. But after dinner when Donna and I decided to take a little walk, he opted not come with us. His joints are starting to ache. I wonder if a knee operation would do any good.

We were doing the New York Times Sunday Crossword puzzle together. And the name of Homus Wagner came up. It turns out that Bill has a Homus Wagner baseball card from the 1920's as well as one of Babe Ruth. He took the Babe Ruth to a local dealer in Santa Cruz who said that the black and whites were not worth much. I started looking up the prices and it turns out they they are worth quite a bit, probably in the thousands is my guess. He is sending me a photocopy so I can check.

Bill also reads prolificly and has been unloading his store of books on us, as if we needed more books. But it is fun to go through them. He reads widely on politics and culture. He was teaching Spanish at a local adult school but they dropped the class because of not enough sign ups.

We are planning a trip together in June to Italy. He speaks what I consider fluent Italian, but he says that the others in his class are better than he is. We have a great invitation to visit San Benedito, Marche with an old friend of Donna's. Lomberto has offered us an extra apartment that they own and a car. He also promised to show us Italy as an Italian would see it. Bill is talking about also taking his step-daughter, Maya, with us if she wants to go. Rome, Pompey, Hurculeum and Naples are all places I want to see. The last time I was in Rome was 1973. It sounds like a great trip.